Gluten Free Pizza Dough

Get Your Pizza Back!

Gluten Free Pizza dough is one of the single most important staples to have in your kitchen. It is exceedingly simple to make, freezes fantastically well, and then defrosts readily.

If you make gluten free pizza for dinner at least once a week, like I do, it’s so easy it will even feel like a night off. I first started Friday night pizza nights in my house when my oldest child started full-day school. All she could talk about was that they served pizza in the school cafeteria every single Friday. The kids lined up forever to get some—and you know it most likely wasn’t very good. But they got it every Friday!

By the end of the week, I’m usually worn out from a week of work and the last thing I want to do fuss with a multi-step meal. Gluten free pizza is about all I can manage!

Directions

In a medium-size bowl or the bowl of your food processor or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, place the flour, xanthan gum, yeast, and sugar, and whisk to combine with a separate, handheld whisk. Add the salt, and whisk again to combine well.

To the flour mixture, add the 3 tablespoons of olive oil and the water in a steady stream, either pulsing in a food processor mixing on medium speed in your stand mixer, or mixing with a spoon or fork to combine. If you are using a food processor, pulse while streaming in the water, until a ball begins to form. Otherwise, stir or beat constantly while streaming in the water and continue stirring until the mixture begins to come together. If the dough seems super sticky, add some more flour a tablespoon at a time, and stir or pulse to combine. Press the dough into a disk.

Place the dough in another medium-size bowl and drizzle it with olive oil. Turn the dough to coat it with oil. This will prevent a crust from forming on the dough while it is rising. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in a warm, draft-free area to rise until doubled in volume (about 1 hour).

After the dough has risen, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour before rolling it out. To make pizza, roll between two pieces of unbleached parchment paper. Create a crust by rolling in the edges, brush the dough with olive oil, and blind bake it at about 400°F (that is, bake it plain, before topping it) for 5 to 7 minutes, so the crust begins to crisp. Then, top it with sauce, cheese, and whatever else you have in the fridge, and return it to the hot oven until the cheese is melted, another 5 to 7 minutes. Allow to set for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

[…] (and I both) can thank the ever delightful Nicole Hunn over at Gluten Free on a Shoestring for her Pizza Dough Recipe, which is also in her cookbook, which is amazing and hasn’t left my kitchen counter in months. […]

[…] this time with pizza crust. E. had been hiking all week and I wanted to surprise him. I used the Gluten Free on a Shoestring recipe (as I had with the pretzels), and again, epic fail. The dough failed to rise at all, and was […]

Stock Market News

July 22, 2011 at 4:02 AM

I absolutely admire this post. Thank you for posting it.

Kadren

July 8, 2011 at 5:05 PM

I just have to say that we are camping and I have 2 pans of pizza dough cooking on our grill right now. :) My girls are soooo excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ll let you know how it goes. :)

NIcole, This is the response I got. “Mama, this is the best piece of pizza I have ever eaten!!!” With a look of pure joy on her face as she raised her slice to her mouth. Now she wants it for breakfast. :) THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! And the grill was awesome. :)

Nicole

July 9, 2011 at 8:34 PM

Hi, Kadren, That’s great! Thanks for keeping me up to date. I’ll have to try grilling the pizza. I love the taste of that – and the idea. :) xoxo Nicole

Janet Slater

June 22, 2011 at 1:29 PM

Nicole,

I just tried the pizza dough recipe…YUM! I made the recipe as flatbreads for he and I to use to top with pulled chicken bbq Monday. Then I put the remaining dough in the fridge, well he wanted pizza for lunch today and nothing else would do. (He and I are the only ones who have to eat GF in the house) Luckily I had the dough ready and topped it with my tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella (which I always have on hand), and his favorite topping sliced black olives. He was so happy that I wanted to say thanks!

Nicole

June 22, 2011 at 2:22 PM

Hi, Janet, That’s great! I’m so glad it worked out for you. It’s such a simple recipe, and it’s very forgiving. And versatile — you have already done so much with it. Gluten Freedom! Thanks for letting me know… xoxo Nicole

[…] for these here sandwiches, but you could use any of the other rolled-out yeast bread recipes, like Pizza Dough, or even roll out the White Sandwich Bread recipe from my Cookbook with an extra dusting of […]

Paula

April 1, 2011 at 6:17 PM

I love Gluten Free Pantry French Bread and Pizza mix. It makes the most awesome pizza dough. I even use it to make dough boys. Yum!

Em

August 3, 2010 at 1:08 AM

Hi Nicole – this looks good but just wanted to let you know that I’ve used your GF sandwich bread recipe as a pizza base (with less water, topped up with soy milk, and a big pinch of herbs) and it was *very* successful! I’m so glad I found your recipes, you’ve been inspirational, I’m cooking up all sorts of things lately :) My family are loving it.

Nicole

August 3, 2010 at 2:18 AM

Hi, Em, That sounds delicious. When I first beginning to have success with gluten-free baking (at long last), I used that recipe for absolutely everything: rolls, pizza, you name it. It was a lifesaver! I find that the advantage of having a separate pizza dough recipe is that I can use any all purpose gluten-free flour blend to make it, so I don’t have to mix and match separate amounts of flours. I’m so glad you’ve been having gluten-free success, and thanks for posting! Warmly, Nicole

Nicole W

April 5, 2010 at 7:04 PM

I cooked mine on a pizza stone in an oven heated to about 475… it was still a little doughy when the cheese started to brown, but overall it was delicious! I think next time we’ll roll it a little thinner and blind bake it for a couple of minutes.

Thanks!

Wendy

January 2, 2010 at 7:36 PM

Tell me how you typically bake this? The first time I tried this recipe for dough, it turned out great. Should have written down how I baked it.

I made it again a few days ago and cooked it at the same time as my husbands Gluten-Full pizza….. Must have used different settings because it was a tad soggy in the middle. I think I cooked it at 400 degrees for about 12-14 minutes – I went by appearance. Top looked good, underneath wasn’t quite done.

Thanks! You have been a Godsend!

Nicole

January 5, 2010 at 3:44 PM

Hi, Wendy, It’s nice to hear from you. If the pizza dough is soggy when you bake it, the only thing I can imagine is that you are rolling it out a bit too thick. Try rolling it thinner, and try baking it just on foil and then right on the oven rack – no baking sheet underneath (unless you have a pizza stone). You can also try bumping up the temperature past 400 degrees, and you can try blind baking the crust (bake just the crust for a few minutes at a high temperature before putting toppings on it, and then bake it again to melt the toppings), something I do when I am looking for an extra crispy crust. I hope that’s helpful, and thanks for posting! Warmly, Nicole

My quest is to find a crust that I can par-bake in a pan, then put on the toppings and bake directly on the oven rack for maximum crispiness.

Any ideas?

I’m really digging your site, and sending all my friends here. We must have the same taste in foods, because EVERY recipe of yours sounds delish. Not the case at lots of other sites I have been to.

Nicole

December 3, 2009 at 12:22 AM

Hi, Wendy, Sometimes I blind bake the crust in a hot oven (about 425 degrees) until it gets crisp (which doesn’t take long – less than 10 minutes), and then bake it with toppings on until they’re melted/warm. It’s really not entirely necessary, though. I usually just roll it out, top it, and bake it in a hot oven until it’s crisp and the toppings are melted. If you do blind bake the crust, brush it with olive oil first. It will speed the browning. And I honestly can’t imagine this pizza crust coming out soggy. I have never had that experience. Thanks for the kind words about the site! Warmly, Nicole

Nicole

August 31, 2009 at 2:08 AM

Hi, Catherine, Absolutely, yes. I do this all the time. Gluten free dough does tend to suffer a bit if baking is delayed (something to do with the xanthan gum), but I do it anyway and have never had any bad results. Warmly, Nicole

Catherine

August 30, 2009 at 2:03 PM

One question: can I make this a day in advance and refrigerate in plastic wrap? (And thanks for that bread recipe! It’s rising as I write…)

Have you ever tried better batter flour mix it’s $60.00 for 25 lbs this includes the Xanthum gum, I know you heart Bob and his red mill but I’m tempted by a better batter. I was a gloriously talented baker before 3, yup 3 of my 6 of my kids were diagnosed CD. I have successfully made some yummy GF goodies but now I’m broke, and they’re still hungry. So as they say that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I love your website and humorous banter. I would just like to go more than 45 min before hearing, I’m hungry.http://www.betterbatter.org/ check it out I haven’t tried it yet.

Nicole

May 20, 2009 at 11:28 PM

Hi, Charlotte,

I hope you can find Bob’s. It’s a great value, & it will let you do whatever it is that you need to do gluten free. Post back with an update!

Thank you Nicole. I believe we can get Bob’s Red Mill brand All Purpose Gluten Free Flour in Halifax which I am going to check out this week.

Charlotte

Nicole

May 19, 2009 at 6:57 PM

Hi, Charlotte,

I understand from Facebook that you are Nova Scotian? I had started out using Bette Hagman’s Four Flour Bean Mix, which I ordered from Authentic Foods’ web site, but it was very, very expensive. Now, I use Bob’s Red Mill brand All Purpose Gluten Free Flour. It is very, very similar to Bette Hagman’s mix, but it is much less expensive.

If you look in the sidebar on the blog, you can click right through to amazon.com, and buy Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour there. I checked, and I am almost certain that amazon.com delivers to Nova Scotia. I also have the recipe for Bette Hagman’s Four Flour Bean Mix (which is a composite of tapioca flour, corn starch, garfava bean flour & sorghum flour) on the blog, if you can find the components and want to make your own. I have trouble finding sorghum flour anywhere myself.